An essential tool for the Roman tabletop gamer

For sale by Christie’s, the oldest 20d in the world (via).

Funnily enough, in high school I had a set just like this.

Lot Description

A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE
Circa 2nd Century A.D.
Deep blue-green in color, the large twenty-sided die incised with a distinct symbol on each of its faces
2 1/16 in. (5.2 cm.) wide

The lot notes describe it thus: “Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used.” I’d wager a guess, but I don’t know if the Romans believed in dragons and dwarves.

If Richard “Lord British” Garriott wasn’t fulfilling a lifelong fantasy by traveling into space, I’d think this would be right up his alley. Any other millionaire gamers out there?

Professor Layton and the Awesome Game

I just finished playing Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village (DS), and despite having taken fewer than 10 hours in total to complete, it’s firmly among the top of the list of my favorite games of all time.

Everything about it is frankly just great. The story, setting and tone are engaging – you play as the Professor and his assistant Luke, invited to a village to investigate the mystery surrounding a very strange inheritance. The game is set in a non-specific time period, and Layton might as well be Sherlock Holmes (he even has a funny tall hat) except that there are cars around.

The music sets a great mood, too – one of my favorite tunes can be heard here (YouTube link).

I even like the way the puzzles are integrated. The characters just dig puzzles and want you to help them solve a few stumpers, for the most part…but perhaps there’s more to this odd habit than meets the eye. At any rate, it’s a change from other puzzle games I love (like the Monkey Island series), where you find yourself “putting different fluids in balloons so you can put them in a mail tube so you can flood a communications room so you can etcetera.” [1]

The puzzles were frequently challenging, often trick questions, and two or three times involved geometry, the answers for which I caved and googled. (Length of a side of a triangle, my foot!) Plus the illustrations are hella cute! [2]

Anyway, I finished the game so quickly because I couldn’t get enough of it, and by the end I was wishing there was more. Luckily while searching YouTube for videos of the cutscenes I found that Layton is part one of a THREE part series (not two as I’d heard before).

I do wish they would make a full length anime film or series out of these characters, though. It could be the new and improved Detective Conan/Case Closed.

Dispatches

- Superstruct is entering its third week and there’s a lot to see and do, and some truly brilliant ideas – but so far players seem to be struggling to put ideas into motion. This week I’m focusing on creating missions and having people enact them in real life (for example, creating and displaying posters).

- I’m participating in both 24 Hour Comics Day (technically this took place last Saturday but I was out of town) and NaNoWriMo, both of which rely on generating a certain amount of content in a set time frame…not unlike a game mechanic, really. Is content over quality the writing equivalent of WoW level grinding?

- Just got Professor Layton and the Curious Village. I have been waiting it to arrive for WEEKS, painstakingly tracking the shipment, and am now more than ready to bust out the DS every night. I’ve been missing it ever since I finished Phantom Hourglass.

Proof that playing video games can not only make you a living, but also makes your wildest dreams come true

US video game magnate Richard Garriott launched into space aboard a Russian rocket on Sunday watched by his father, a NASA astronaut who went into space at the height of the Cold War.

Gamespotting – Children of Men

The New York Times writeup of this scene says more than I ever could about the film and the role of the game in this context:

“An early encounter between Theo and his powerful cousin Nigel (Danny Huston) lays out the film’s moral and political topography as clearly as would a cartographer. . . . The men chat briefly, then join a third, younger man at a large dining table in front of Picasso’s “Guernica.” This furious protest — which commemorates the 1937 decimation of Guernica by Nazis, Italian Fascists and Spanish Nationalists — has been reduced to wallpaper.

“We got to keep ‘Las Meninas,’ ” says Nigel, “and a few other Velázquez. But we only got a hold of two Goyas. That thing in Madrid was a real blow to art.” Theo replies: “Not to mention people.”

Seated with his back to Picasso’s writhing black-and-white figures, Theo spins a tall tale in a ploy to secure the transport papers. As Handel swells on the soundtrack, Theo continues spinning his lie and a servant tries to serve him: he waves the man away with a practiced hand. Nigel listens to Theo with vague detachment and murmurs a few words about the difficulty of the request (“That’s quite a favor”). He then turns to the third man, who is busily playing some kind of game wired to one hand, and says, “Alex, take your pills.” Alex, his emptied-out eyes fixed on the game, doesn’t seem to hear. Nigel repeats Alex’s name quietly twice more, then roars it. Alex takes his pills without pause, his fingers mechanically tapping.